I do my best, most of the time, to stay topical within this blog: Rockies first and baseball second. My Twitter account has no limits and I tweet about baseball, golf, current news events and even things that make no sense (tucking in your t-shirt). But sometimes I am an angry guy and I need a place to vent. If I do not vent I am liable to do something crazy like walk across the street to Wal-Mart and by a Butterfinger and EAT IT!
I can’t do that. There has been too much hard work over the past two years, nearly, to drop the weight that I have and I won’t break now. I would rather go off-topic a bit here and save myself the regret later. So endure this piece and I promise, Rockies fans, I will do a better job staying on-topic in the future.
Old picture, sorry, all that I could find...but it gets my point across
Things I hate:
(starting with baseball)
RBI stats for leadoff hitters
I am starting to see expanded statistics displayed on some TV broadcasts but Root Sports continues to demand that RBI is a stat that is shown for every player. Who cares how many RBI Eric Young Jr. has in 2012? Is that relevant in any way to show his value to the Colorado Rockies? No, it is not. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Coming in a close second is that they continue to show leadoff hitters batting average when his on-base average is far more telling and important.
Citing wins as the end all be all stat for pitchers (Cliff Lee)
Yesterday morning on my way to the golf course Mike and Mike were talking about the Philadelphia Phillies and said that Cliff Lee has been awful this year because he has one win (he won his second game last night against the Washington Nationals). If I tell you that a pitcher has one win what can really be derived from that statement? Nothing. NOTHING can be derived from that statement. It can mean many things: the pitcher has been awful or his supporting offense has been awful or maybe a combination, but nothing certain can be taken from that statistic.
Pitcher A: 5 wins, 3.88 ERA, 1.422 WHIP, 9.6 H/9, 3.2 BB/9 and 8 K/9
Pitcher B: 2 wins, 3.73 ERA, 1.181 WHIP, 8.9 H/9, 1.7 BB/9 and 8.5 K/9
Who would you rather have? Lee or Vance Worley (pitcher A)? Give me Lee, please. Hell, Christian Friedrich has five wins. I can learn as much about a pitcher based on his wins as I can learn about what it is like to live in New Jersey based on those orange people from MTV.
Gym guy who barely works out, but hangs out in the locker room and chats…naked
I have been at the gym early a lot these past few weeks. I switched jobs about a month ago and it has made me change my schedule so I get to the gym by 5:30am each day and have to shower at the gym before work. It makes more sense for me. And in this new routine I have been reintroduced to the guy at the gym who sort of walks on the treadmill for like seven minutes and then leisurely walks to the weights to do three sets of 10 consisting of weight that isn’t challenging before retiring to the locker room. The locker room is where he really gets his work done: with his mouth. He takes precautions to NOT cover up while he chats with anyone who will listen. But he doesn’t stop there. The guy at my gym will talk to the guy in the shower next to him! Listen, fella, I am showering and pretty much the second to last thing I want to do in the shower is TALK TO ANOTHER GUY! (I think we all know what the last thing I want to do in the shower is…) You don’t even really need to shower because no sweat hit your body while “working out” in the gym.
Who raised these guys? Didn’t they have a dad to teach them the general boundaries that all men live by? You know; look straight ahead while at the urinal, don’t touch another man’s grill, nail polish is akin to makeup and neither hit a man’s body and while we shouldn’t be utterly ashamed and shy with our bodies we shouldn’t parade around the men’s locker room without an attempt to cover up…and the shower area is like a library: shut up.
When a stoplight changes but no one is going the other direction
This one happens too often to me now that I am driving pretty early in the morning four or five days a week. I am cruising along only to have to stop at a stoplight where no cars are going the perpendicular direction. I look left, right, left and right again and there are no cars in sight. Why the light changed is beyond me. Maybe the light thinks “gee, I haven’t had any traffic come from that direction in a while, maybe I missed the sensor being tripped so I will change.” And then the real kicker is when the light finally goes yellow for the crossing traffic a car finally pulls up to the light – now red light. While I sat at a red light and no one was around to use the green light for crossing traffic I get impatient. When my light finally goes green and after waiting what feels like four hours (and is probably only like 30 seconds) I start to cross the intersection and a car finally pulls going the other way only to run into a fresh red light…there has to be a better way! Technology has to be advanced enough by now that stoplights can be smarter.
The cameras showing up at your gym wasn't a dead give away that you were selected for the show? Or that they asked you to answer the phone on speakerphone?
My last rant comes from watching the “Big Break Atlantis Reunion” episode on DVR last night. For those who do not know the Big Break is a reality show on the golf channel where 12 or 14 golfers have a chance, through a series of competitions – some of which are not even close to real golf, to earn their way onto one of the mini-tours in hopes of getting to the PGA or LPGA tour someday.
I often watch the show because they have female contestants and a good looking female golfer is about at the top of my Hottest Women on Earth food chain.
Anyway, onto the rant: last night they showed short clips of a few of the girls getting the call that they had been selected to be a part of the show. Many of the girls were at home, one was at the gym and another on the golf course. They all answered the phone, on speaker phone**, and they all acted completely surprised. Why? WAS THE FACT THAT A TV CREW WAS FILMING YOU ANSWERING THE CALL NOT A DEAD GIVEAWAY?!?! Big Break isn’t the only show to run these sorts of clips, you see it for all kinds of reality TV shows. The Biggest Loser would do this all the time with Bob showing up on some fat guys doorstep to tell him he was going on the show. The guy would act surprised when there was a TV CREW INSIDE HIS HOUSE WATCHING HIM OPEN THE DOOR.
In the words of the great Charles Barkley: “It’s trrrble”
Thanks for reading and thanks for saving me from eating a candy bar. Feel free to leave any things that really Grind Your Gears below. Follow me on Twitter as I tend to rant there quite often.
…There has to be a psychologist somewhere that specializes in helping me with my obvious problems, right?
**I think of The Apprentice where the contestants are always holding their cell phone away from their face and using the speaker phone. They are obviously doing this so the camera can catch the audio from the person they are speaking to. This has become some sort of stupid trend now. I see people (saw a lady this morning in her Audi) talking on their phone using the speaker phone. I don’t care who you are talking to and I certainly don’t need to hear your side of the conversation much less the other end of the call. If you must use your cell phone please don’t use the speaker phone. You aren’t Jose Canseco and you aren’t talking to Trace Adkins in hopes of winning Donald Trump’s …er…NBC’s money to give to a charity.
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13 comments
Travis Lay
August 1, 2012 at 11:19 AM (UTC -6)
I had to add this to the ridiculousness that is assigning pitcher wins:
On Saturday the Yankees and Red Sox played a nine inning baseball game.
304 pitches were thrown by eight different pitchers.
Seven of the eight pitchers threw more than 1/3 of an inning.
The one pitcher who threw 1/3 of an inning threw TWO PITCHES!
Andrew Miller is the pitcher who threw 2 pitches over 1/3 of an inning.
Andrew Miller was awarded the WIN from the official scorer.
Miller threw less than 1% of the pitches that were thrown on Saturday.
He recorded 4% of the outs required by the Red Sox to the get the win.
Miller got the win for throwing 2 pitches and getting 1 out.
Pitcher wins are dumb.
Adam
August 2, 2012 at 4:53 PM (UTC -6)
I few years back (09), I saw Alan Embree get a “Win” against the Nats without even throwing a pitch (it is kinda cool because it’s more rare than the perfect game, i think). Game was tied 4-4, top of the 8th, 2 outs, runner on first. Embree comes in, and without throwing a pitch to home, picks off the runner at first to end the inning. Hes pinch hit for and taken out in the bottom of the 8th and the Rox score. Street closes the game in the 9th for the Save, Embree gets the win.
Wins are meaningless.
Cliff Lee on Waivers. Pick ‘em up! Haha… It’d be money better spent then on Cuddy. But I’m sure we’d some how find a way to ruin him, push his ERA up over five, eat 80% of his salary when we trade him to TX for another mid level middle infield who won’t touch the bigs, Nolan Ryan gets him back to his potential, and the Rangers win the World Series.
CodenameDuchess
August 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM (UTC -6)
On twitter @MileHighSports is reporting that O’Dowd may be axed!!!
I don’t know about the rest of you but down here in southern california I just went from 6 to midnight. Keep your fingers crossed everybody!!!
Travis Lay
August 1, 2012 at 12:08 PM (UTC -6)
Both Renck and Ringoslby have tweeted today that O’Dowd is not going anywhere.
CodenameDuchess
August 1, 2012 at 12:12 PM (UTC -6)
Ugh. So it appears that MileHighSports just misinterpreted this?
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120801&content_id=35938572&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
Travis Lay
August 1, 2012 at 12:16 PM (UTC -6)
They have two pitching coaches….why not have two GMs?
I havent been on Twitter too much today but it sounded like Andy Lindhahl (whoever that is) reported something that sounded like O’Dowd was out. I saw Ringsolby emphatically state that that was not true and a little while later Renck said the same.
What this means for the Rockies? Maybe Geivett was getting offers from other teams and this was to keep him around?
It kind of feels like there might be more coming…
Seth
August 1, 2012 at 12:30 PM (UTC -6)
I am really really really hoping this is the beginning of the end for odowd, but who knows with the Rockies. Come on Rockies do the right thing and fire him!!!
Eric Garcia
August 2, 2012 at 7:23 AM (UTC -6)
Not quite the ax, but it looks like it’s now inevitable. I’d rather wait for the end of the season for the staff cleansing. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/rockies-make-front-office-changes/
Montana Steve
August 1, 2012 at 1:21 PM (UTC -6)
Travis, don’t sweat trying to stay on-topic. God knows anything is more entertaining than the on field product right now.
TroyF
August 1, 2012 at 3:59 PM (UTC -6)
amen on the stats issues. Good lord I cannot believe people do not understand OBP, SLG, OPS and stats like this. The sad part is many people in the game don’t understand them either. It’s just pretty sad all around.
Seth
August 1, 2012 at 10:20 PM (UTC -6)
I would like to share this little gem of an article in the denver post today:
http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_21212476/dick-monfort-says-rockies-have-right-people-place?source=rss
This clearly shows that not only do we have a big dummy as the GM of our team, but we may have a huge dummy as our owner (SHOCKER!).
Here are a few of my favorite lines: “We have the right people running this organization. I know there’s some that disagree with me. People talk about accountability. I am taking accountability for this,” Monfort said.
AND
“I don’t know how the other 29 clubs are doing it and I don’t care. I don’t really know that it’s unconventional.”
Or how about
“I think a lot of GMs just focus on the major league team. We just don’t have that luxury of focusing on the major league team (with the GM). We have to draft. We have to develop. And we have to get guys to the major league level.”
I thought the job of the GM was to not only focus on the major league team but to also develop players, draft, and get guys to the major league level…or is that just too much for “the best general manager is baseball, head and shoulders above everyone else.” You would think that maybe our owner would take advice from other owners on how to run a team, or maybe get a guy who could put a competitive team on the field.
Gosh the Rockies are a mess.
Dan
August 2, 2012 at 8:11 AM (UTC -6)
I give up. This clusterf*ck of an organization isn’t worth the effort to follow anymore.
Dennis
August 2, 2012 at 11:33 AM (UTC -6)
Do Jim Tracy and George Frazier use the same barber ( or wig maker?). Looks like they comb their hair with a jar of Vaseline and a cinder block. Since we’re ranting about stuff just thought I would throw that out there.